NATION & WORLD

United Nations estimates that fighting has driven more than 800,000 from homes

Pakistani warplanes bombed suspected militant positions in a stronghold close to the capital Monday, pressing ahead with a fierce offensive that has driven hundreds of thousands from their homes, many into crowded refugee camps.

The government claimed 700 insurgents had died and that the Taliban was on the run.

In one camp in the town of Mardan, just south of the battle zone in a barren field, hundreds of displaced people lined up for hours to register with the UN to get tents, food and medical treatment.

"In this camp, I am not seeing anything that will give us much relief," said a new arrival, Iftikhar Khan, fearing the facilities there were insufficient. Like most of those fleeing, Khan said he ultimately hoped to stay with relatives.

The United Nations said 360,600 refugees had fled Swat and neighboring Dir and Buner districts since operations began last week. That number is on top of some 500,000 people displaced by past offensives.

Islamabad's tough military response has drawn praise from the U.S., which wants Al Qaeda and Taliban militants rooted out from havens where they can plan attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan as well as destabilize nuclear-armed Pakistan.

CALIFORNIA

'There's nothing left'

Phillip Pearson examines the ruins of his friends' home Monday in the aftermath of the wildfire that passed through the neighborhood as it scorched Santa Barbara. Firefighters took advantage of cool, damp weather as they rushed to wipe out the last remnants of a wildfire that destroyed dozens of homes. The 13-square-mile blaze was 70 percent surrounded as of Monday evening, authorities reported.

WISCONSIN

Book by gay ex-prelate

A Roman Catholic archbishop who resigned in 2002 over a sex and financial scandal involving a man describes his struggles with being gay in an upcoming memoir about his decades serving the church.

Archbishop Rembert Weakland, former head of the Milwaukee archdiocese, said Monday he wrote about his sexual orientation because he wanted to be candid about "how this came to life in my own self, how I suppressed it, how it resurrected again."

"A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church: Memoirs of a Catholic Archbishop" is to be released in June.

"I was very careful and concerned that the book not become a Jerry Springer, to satisfy people's prurient curiosity or anything of this sort," Weakland said.

Weakland stepped down soon after Paul Marcoux, a former Marquette University theology student, revealed in May 2002 he was paid $450,000 by the archdiocese to settle a sexual assault claim he made against the archbishop more than two decades earlier. Weakland denied ever assaulting anyone.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Flu alert called justified

The number of cases of swine flu may have been several times higher than reported and the potential for rapid spread of the illness justified the World Health Organization's decision to raise the global pandemic alert, a new study concludes.

While about 4,800 cases have been confirmed in 30 countries, the new analysis estimates there have been 6,000 to 32,000 cases in Mexico alone.

While there have been 1,626 cases of the flu confirmed in Mexico, the researchers note that there have been more than 11,000 suspected infections.

NEW YORK

Fly-by request rejected

The Federal Aviation Administration turned down a Navy request to fly a patrol aircraft past Manhattan on Monday, two weeks after a nerve-racking Air Force photo shoot over the Statue of Liberty caused a brief panic.

The agency said it refused clearance for the flight down the Hudson River because the Navy had given it only a few hours' notice of its plans.

FAA officials said the four-engine, turboprop P-3 Orion admittedly had a low probability of attracting attention. It was to have flown no lower than 3,000 feet, well above New York's tallest skyscrapers, in an air corridor where planes of a similar size are common.

But after city officials were informed and higher-level FAA officials learned about the request, they declined permission for the flight, saying unannounced military flybys were a bad idea.

OHIO

Guard suspect deported

Federal agents carrying John Demjanjuk in a wheelchair put him on a small jet Monday and deported him to Germany, where the retired autoworker is accused of being a Nazi death camp guard during World War II.

Demjanjuk, 89, arrived in an ambulance at Cleveland's Burke Lakefront Airport after spending several hours with U.S. immigration officials.

The deportation comes four days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider Demjanjuk's request to block deportation and about 3 1/2 years after he was last ordered deported.

Demjanjuk is accused of 29,000 counts of accessory to murder at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. Demjanjuk denies the charges.